Kokumo's plans for fame far ahead of schedule

Transgender artist has worked overtime to get debut single, video out

October 17, 2013|By Jessica Hopper, Special to the Tribune

(Bonnie Wade, HANDOUT)

Though Kokumo insists that she's hardly started on year one of her five-year plan, the last few months make it clear she's probably going to meet her goals by year three. Just last month, Kokumo (who goes only by Kokumo) released her debut single and accompanying video, which quickly drew international raves and reposts on major queer media sites. The narrative video for the title track of her EP, "There Will Come A Day," tells the story of a black trans woman disclosing her identity to her partner. For Kokumo, the song and the video were ways to assert and acknowledge the humanity of trans women.

"The only time we ever hear about trans women, black trans women in the media, is when someone is reporting our murder," says the singer from her home in Pilsen. "I wanted to make a project that humanizes us. Growing up, I thought trans women were freaks who made fools of themselves on 'Jerry Springer,' that all they could be was sex workers. But the trans woman in the video has a career; that's not a facet we ever see portrayed in the media. A beautiful, black trans woman in control of her life. It's also a way to talk about the complexities of love and the ways that oppression complicates love, that in some ways it makes it impossible"

As a kid in the Jeffrey Manor neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Kokumo lacked the terminology for who she was. "There was only 'gay' or 'straight.' I was a dark-skinned, poor trans child; I didn't know who I was or what I could offer the world."

What she now offers the world is vast: Aside from recording and performing, Kokumo sings at rallies, is a poet, filmmaker and philanthropist. This year she is prepping for the launch of Kokumo, the digital magazine, which she says will cover "all things trans, black and revolutionary." Her debut album is in the works for a July release, and her Chicago-based T.G.I.F. — Trans, Gender-Nonconforming and Intersex Freedom — conference is heading into its third year. Seemingly, all of her time and effort go into creating media that speaks to the trans woman experience.

"I have been singing, honing my craft, since I was 17," Kokumo explains. "I knew I had to become an artist because of the pain of being oppressed; when I couldn't just talk it out anymore, that's when singing became a venue."

Her meeting with her pianist, Daniel Stoermer, seems almost fated: Composer looking for a singer moves in next door to a singer in need of a musical collaborator. "He would hear me singing, I would hear him playing Mozart. And one day he knocked on my door," Kokumo says. That was last summer. It took about six months to get the material for the debut Kokumo EP together, with the goal always being to release songs that "were speaking my truth," says the singer.

And where does Kokumo hope all this hard work leads? The five-year plan includes enough to last most people a lifetime, but, then again, most people aren't laboring with the same restless passion as Kokumo.

"Five years from now I want Kokumo Media to be world renowned, for it to be a production company that makes female films, films by and for trans women," she says. "I want T.G.I.F. to be the TGI equivalent of the March on Washington, but happen every year, not every 50 years. In making a name for myself, to be able to bring on other revolutionary trans musicians, to cultivate a place for them in the music industry."